アニ・ノート

The benevolent dictator of Meenuvia is also an anime fan, but unlike our own overlord Maestro, he finds time to blog about it (albeit infrequently).

Take your standard high school teen romance angst-fest… And attach a JATO unit and smash it into the side of a cliff at 600MPH where it explodes into a shower of rainbow-coloured sakura petals.

This one is actually good. Double bonus points for teenagers who aren’t all jerks and/or idiots by default.

This echoes the sentiment that we’ve seen at Subatomic Brainfreeze: “It’s like watching puppies and kittens go to high school.” I didn’t link it back when it was posted because it’s just not true, but to argue otherwise is to post big spoilers.

Still, since good anime cannot be spoiled… Ready? Here’s a screencap of some bitches beating Sawako up in the washroom:

Oh and by the way, apparently, characters who are more evil eschew direct violence and choose to pull strings, although it wasn’t broadcast yet.

Granted, Pixy didn’t say that all teenagers weren’t jerks…

UPDATE 2009/11/16: Now he says it’s the second coming of Gurren Lagann.

Our master troller and famous editor of game translations continues to apply expletives better than Cunningham ever done. Agree or disagree, it’s worth a smirk at least — when reading the whole thing. But I’m going to ruin the fun and rip quotes.

Kiddy Girl-and – Honestly, I’m not quite sure what to think of this show just yet. It has excellent production values, wonderful designs, and very cute girls. On the other hand, it’s by the weirdos who made Kiddy Grade and the plot will probably end up being something very strange indeed. … Also, really, who doesn’t want to be kissed by a loli?

Well, a chu~ on the cheek perhaps, as she unpacks her birthday presents… I’m afraid this kind of advocacy might create a misleading impressions about the show. I heard that in neigther case the title had anything with the content.

Seitokai no Ichizon – Pretty much living up to what I expected out of it after the first episode. Sugisaki’s a great guy, everything flows nice and smooth, and there’s even some interesting writing to top things off.

I honestly wanted to give Ichizon a chance, but it’s just not working. It’s a big hit with the hardcore otaku demographic though.

Sora no Otoshimono – Absolute fucking proof that you should never judge a show by its premise or even by its first episode. Going by the opening episode alone, SoraOto is nothing more than pandering dreck, exploitative fanservice, and other epithets that ANN staffers enjoy applying to shows [He forgot Jessi/Belinda and such — ed.]. However, those who gave the series another chance found themselves watching one of the most inventive and spunky shows of the season – and, in my opinion, of the entire year. … every single shot looks absolutely gorgeous. The art direction in general is absolutely fantastic. … this show is funny, engrossing, and generally just an extremely well-done production in every area.

Duly noted. It’s not like I believe a word that Moogy types, but yes, it’s something to see, and certainly for more than 1 episode.

Nyankoi – Another show where I hated the first episode, but ended up really enjoying the rest of it. … Perhaps not something extremely memorable, but it’s an enjoyable and frequently quite cute romantic comedy.

Again the 1st episode thing! Why do they keep doing this? It reminds me of Arashi most of all, where I loved the first episode enough to give it a good try, only be presented with Diet Grave of Fireflies.

Railgun – This show is QUALITY garbage. QUALITY filler garbage, at that. Good fucking job, J.C. Staff, you fucking managed to make this just as fucking bad as fucking Index, if not fucking worse.

Now he’s just trolling. Truth to be told, I heard such an opinion, and the grumbling about the fillers, but hey… if Railgun makes Sixten happy, it’s all right.

One of the big lessions about the blogging opinions is how one must use a sieve carefuly to separate the actual facts from impression. For example, Nova called Kampfer “tasteless”. Way to post useless bytes! He also put its characters into the “cons” column: surely that’s data? Or is it? Why are they there? Unrealistic? Unpleasant? Not heroic enough? Moogy at least tries to zoom at what he sees as the key data point (not that I agree with his ideas about Kampfer).

Starting with ep.2, every episode ends in a cliffhanger of sorts, which is extremely irritating for a supposed iyashikei. So, my answer is not to watch the last 2 minutes, but instead suspend the video. I resume it when next week’s episode becomes available, thus negating the cliffie. Take that, P.IG!

Damien Kellis hits bulls-eye with this question:

Why are most of the customers in the Maid-ish Cafe female? Fushigi mystery.

On second thought, Kampfer is so full of manifest impossibilities, that this one should count as something very minor.

Thanks to the opening and ending animations, the identity of this New Kampfer is no surprise. What I did find refreshing was that the Obvious Questions asked in the usual fan-speculation manner are, if not answered, then at least acknowledged: where do Kampfers come from? Why are the Messengers all from the same toyline that apparently only Kaede [Sakura] likes? Is Kaede involved in this somehow?

Obviously I need to find a less obvious topic about which to speculate.

I pirated the recently published album of Kampfer’s ED remix, in secret, since I only do it for sampling purposes… It’s not like I’m a fan enough to buy R2s. Oh wait, who am I kidding? Anyhow, a post at Transientem made me leave the closet because of the following pronouncement:

Megumi Nakajima could be the next Maaya Sakamoto.

Surprisingly, I know who Miss Nakajima is: she has beaten every fan’s idol May’n fair and square in Macross Frontier soundtrack, and confused Hinano. But alas, Kampfer ED Single sounded kind of flat to me. It’s suitably perky and poppy, but it has no standalone power that I crave. Oh well, better luck next time.

BTW, her partner in the ED is Marina Inoue, who I also know (mostly because I was surprised to find that “Marina” was a Japanese name). Kampfer has a stong cast overall, but singing without video is a different matter.

DiGiKerot produced a long addendum for today’s Unfunny, from which I understood one thing: someone is trying to sell a dub-only anime release in America, on BD no less. We all knew it had to happen sooner or later. And it’s not all that unprecendented: dubbed anime was broadcast on TV since time immemorial. Funny, just a few months ago everyone blogged how the industry has turned towards sub-only releases, and now this.

BTW, I’m sort of laughing at the insolence of rights holders who dictate the conditions to R1 licensors on the show that was such a flop. Jeez, these people should’ve been grateful if Media Blasters deigned to consider it. But that’s beside the point.

UPDATE: SDB looks the root of the problem: the insanity of the price spread between regions, but he’s pessimistic about a solution. The solution has to include either raising American prices or lowering Japanese prices, or both. And all parties that set the prices are fearful of the change.

The fueled by the completion of my R2 collection rewatch is over, and I am starting to suspect that I’m overdosing with only a 6th pass. This time aroud, all sorts of imperfections get into my eyes and I began to place it among the weaker J.C.Staff’s productions, art-wise. Certainly, it was well-directed and well-executed on the high level, but there was a lot of really sketchy character art. Fillers are annoying too and I pretty much fast-forwarded through things like crying babies, stamp card search, kitten invasion, everyone’s day video. I think I’m not going to watch Mahoraba again any time soon.

Notes:

02 Saki says “long time no see” to Momo and Tama, meaning that she accounts for the passage of time while off-line.

13 Asami makes observation how people in the photo match current residents (when I wrote my spoiling notes, I thought it was my own idea; Asami misses the wrong generation gap though).

14 Woa, the Boy A drew “Reiko” with her head still attached. He’s never done it before or after.

25 Tama’s defeat was the best part of the anime indeed.

Words:

なじりかた — namecalling (for Occult Lab president)
紅葉の中で / こうよう/もみじ – colorful leaves, both are used IIRC
ないしょく — temporary job (not バイト)

UPDATE: It’s weird, but while Azumanga — a classic by J.C.Staff — had a simplified art too, it looked much better. It was more consistent and purposeful, and with fewer mis-shaped faces. I just rewatched ep.10 for a check.

Received an odd present in the mail today: a poster of the notorious trap and his aunt {update: cousin actually}.

Apparently it’s a centerfold from “Dengeki Maoh” vol 11 (November 2009).

Zyl asks:

Or does Sakura simply give birth to them offscreen while she is in Alien Queen mode?

I suspect she’s making them like any girl would, from old pillowcases, stuffing, and such. Then she or Moderators animate them. They become self-aware, but complain that they aren’t “living things” (”ikimono”), as in preview for ep.5.

Making good on his revival promise, Jeff posts a vintage Hop Step Jump review of the season. Two notes:

1. Just as Windy Tales lays foundation for my perceptions of Kimi ni Todoke, so does Bokura ga Ita for him.

2. Where is Kampfer?!